Third Time's the Charm
by RedRosesandMarigolds
Summary: For Pro-Bending, Season Three, Round One. Mai has left Zuko, and he can think of little else, but should he try to get her back, search for his mother, or embrace his duties? His friends all have ideas, but Zuko isn't sure who to listen to. Can he find a good compromise?
**Hi, this is for the Pro-Bending Circuit Season Three. The theme is, in fact, the number three. I am the Orchid Garden Ostrich-Horses' Waterbender, so I had to write about someone trying to decide between three options. The prompts I took were "Third Time's the Charm" (Easy), "Red" (Easy), "Ursa", (Medium), "Ember Island" (Medium), "Three things will always be revealed: the Sun, the moon, and the truth." (The Buddha) (Hard), and "Third-Person PoV" (Hard). So, I don't own Avatar, and I hope that this is to the judges' tastes.**

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When Mai left, Zuko was a bit of a mess, to say the least. For years, she had been a pillar of his life, always there and ready with the right words. He realised now that that been the problem. He had grown so used to her constant presence that he had come to think of her as part of the package, and failed to respect her as the treasure, the pearl beyond price, that she was. On the outside, he was the Fire Lord who was slowly transforming his nation to fit a world without war, but internally, he was still reeling from the shock of her abrupt departure.

However, time allowed the shock to fade, and eventually, his mangled contemplations yielded three options: go ahead anyway and find his mother, go to Mai and either have a reasoned discussion or beg her on bended knee to take him back, or do what he was really supposed to be doing and push on with the war reparations. All three of them looked pretty bleak in the grey haze caused by ordinary teenage heartbreak.

He felt as though he were quite neatly stuck between a rock and a hard place. The agony of the decision weighed down on him in every waking moment, stopping him from sleeping in his painfully empty bed, as he tossed and turned and shifted the pillows and opened the windows and closed the curtains, only to open and close every window, door and curtain minutes later. As he felt the sleep slowly begin to take him into its warm embrace, he would automatically reach out for a body that was not there, and then he would sit bolt upright, shivering with cold in a room that was stuffy with everything closed and freezing when everything was open. All he wanted was for Mai to put her arms around him the way she did when he was having trouble sleeping, or working out a solution to a political issue, or figuring out how to deal with a contrary advisor, or...or...or anything, really. And she offered such good advice, laced with sarcasm and cynicism. But he couldn't dwell on her.

His life had not stopped without Mai. The Fire Nation could not stop without Mai. He had to pick himself up, move on, not be so parasitic to her. A Fire Lord dependent on anyone was a weak one - one piece of advice from his dear father. Him... It was his meetings with Ozai that had forced her out, feeling as though she could no longer be trusted with his secrets, nor be a part of his life. Why was it, then, that it dawned on Zuko that his every train of thought led him back to her? He had to find his mother - he had to know! But there was still so much to be done! Still, the Fire Nation was considered evil, an oppressor, a war-mongering country. Weeks and months, maybe even years of nose-to-the-grindstone negotiations, so many meetings and papers to sign and make-nice visits - all navigated without Mai by his side.

Urgh! Maybe he _was_ dependent on her! For when would his thoughts stop returning to his former girlfriend? He had. To. Move. On! He set up a mantra in his head: "Don't think about Mai, don't think about Mai...", but this was counterproductive, for obvious reasons. He got up from his bed, went over to his desk, and fished out a letter. It was a letter he had not yet read, which made it of the utmost urgency, but in his mind, he read it in her voice, and the occasional sarcastic remark pertaining to what he was reading would seductively rasp itself in his head, accompanied by a dry chuckle which he found _so_ attractive. If only there were a girl more perfect than Mai. Perhaps that would take his mind off things. But in the absence of this phantom girl, Zuko got up and went into the palace gardens to sit by the turtle-duck pond where he had fed the little creatures with his mother, long ago, and there, he would think of her, and the happy times they had spent together, and he would _not_ remember hesitantly handing Mai a chunk of bread as he put his arm round her shoulders, settling down together, _or_ picture her sitting there, older now, with their own little boy.

He sat there for a while, deliberately focusing on each turtle-duck, trying not to feel guilty about his lack of bread, when he heard footsteps behind him. Turning his head, he saw that it was Katara, and he stood up to face his friend.

"Hey, Katara."

"Hey Zuko." She smiled her usual warm smile at him. "We've got Appa all packed up and ready to go. Come on. Time to go and find your mum." She noticed his lack of an expression and frowned. "What's wrong? You were impatient to leave a week ago."

"What do you think I should do, Katara? You're the responsible one."

"What do you mean?"

"Mai." Katara noticed how his face seemed to crumple in as he said her name, and so she sat down next to him. One adventurous turtle-duckling came up to her and gently nudged her leg with its beak, and the young girl stroked its downy head with one delicate finger as she pondered her answer. It turned out that she pondered for too long, for Zuko got to his feet angrily, only to throw himself back down.

"Oh, what would you know anyway? Things are going great with you and Aang, aren't they?"

"I know how you feel, though." his friend replied gently. "When I lost my mother..." Her hand went automatically to her necklace. "I just... I just didn't know what to do. I sat in our tent, sometimes out on an iceberg a little way away from our village, and cried, because there didn't seem to be anything else to do. But one day, I realised that I couldn't let my whole life be defined by that one loss: I had to pick myself up and move on. So I did: I filled out my mother's role, and I've never looked back. You have to move on, too. I was close to my mother, and I know yours was equally important. So, let's go and find her."

Zuko sighed. He didn't like it, but what choice did he have? Simply sitting and wishing wouldn't bring Mai back to him. He got to his feet, and followed Katara.

The journey was long and arduous, and Zuko was not used to travelling in such a manner. His travels with the others had mostly been rather limited, simply scuttling between safe hidey-holes. And so this endless search seemed, at times, almost useless. The fruit of the journey, of course, made it worth it, but in the long nights camping out, wondering if they would ever find Ursa, Zuko always wished that Mai were there to place a hand on his shoulder and offer a few reassuring scraps of comfort. It was on one of these nights, sitting outside his tent in a field just outside some remote village where, yet again, no-one had ever seen anyone from the Fire Nation at all, let alone a woman fitting Ursa's description, that Zuko heard soft footfalls behind him and turned to behold Aang standing just behind him.

"Hey, Zuko. What are you doing out here? You ought to get some sleep - it'll be a long day tomorrow."

"Should we just give up and go home?" Zuko asked him apropos of nothing. "Face it - my mother is probably dead." A thought occurred to him. "And if she isn't, she must know that the war's over, and that I'm Fire Lord - she obviously doesn't want to come back for some reason."

"What's wrong, Zuko?" Aang asked. "You used to be so obsessed with finding your mum, and now you're really moody - more than normal, that is."

Zuko turned away with the intention of indicating that the conversation was over, but Aang wasn't going go be put off that easily. "Seriously - you can tell us."

Zuko scrambled to his feet. He towered over the young Airbender, especially as he had chosen to remain seated. "You really want to know? It's Mai. My "obsession" cost me her, and my last obsession - chasing you - didn't get me anywhere either! I'm starting to wonder what the point is of getting obsessed. Mai was such a great girlfriend, and how did I repay her? By locking her out and treating her like she didn't matter any more! And now she's gone and I may never get a chance to apologise." He finished deflatedly and sank down again next to his young friend.

Aang looked at him consideringly. "The monks always taught us the importance of being completely honest, especially with the people who matter most. "Three things cannot be hidden: the Sun, the moon, and the truth." It was what you weren't telling Mai that was the final straw."

"Thanks, Aang." Zuko folded his arms and turned away again. "That helps a lot."

"What? It's what the monks always used to say."

"Yeah, well, the monks didn't have problems with their girlfriends. They knew nothing about romance. Face it - your Airbender wisdom is not going to help me here."

Aang considered for a minute. Then, his face fell. "I'm sorry, Zuko. But I don't think Mai is coming back. You have to move on, get into the search for your mum. I know I'd be jumping at a chance to search for Monk Gyatso."

Zuko sighed in defeat. "Yeah. I'll do that."

When, at last, Ursa was found, it was a beautiful victory. Zuko felt almost blissfully happy, wonderfully comfortable with his good fortune and sheltered within his lovely dome of motherly affection. The only thing missing was being able to throw his arms around Mai and share this triumph, this desire fulfilled, with her. This did leave quite a hefty hole; it was only now that Zuko realised that he had envisioned them marrying and sharing everything - ironic, since she had left over his sharing nothing - and the fact that Fate had had another plan for them seemed to taint everything.

As the months passed, Ursa began to notice more and more that her son seemed to have something on his mind, something negative. She tried for a while to guess what it was, but eventually, she decided to concede defeat, and approach Zuko.

He was remarkably easy to crack. "Do you remember Mai?" he had asked, after she had mentioned his low mood. Ursa thought back - _oh, yes, that friend of Azula's who was perpetually bored. Didn't she and Zuko have a bit of a childhood crush on each other?_ \- and nodded. Zuko sighed, scratched the back of his neck, and continued.

"Well, she and I were...we had a relationship. A serious one. I thought..." He seemed embarrassed admitting this point, for he turned away as he said it, "I thought it was going to last forever, and I'm not sure, but I think she did, too. She was great: she always had advice when I didn't know what to do, and she always knew what kind of support I needed. But I didn't realise what I had. I would always go to other people for help and ignore her, and when it got so bad that I was asking my _father_ for advice rather than her, she knew she had to get out. So she did. And it's been nearly six months now, and I still haven't got over her."

Ursa considered. "You know what you did wrong." she said at length. "That means that you can apologise. I've had relationships end before, and I know that if you understand that it was your fault, you can approach them to make amends."

Zuko's eyes widened. "Really? I can get her back?"

Ursa smiled. "Maybe. It's still her choice, remember." She looked carefully at him, and took note of the bags under his bloodshot eyes and the hair tousled from running his hands through it in stress. "You look like you need a holiday, my love. Why don't you go and spend a couple of weeks on Ember Island, and invite Mai to join you?"

Zuko's face relaxed into a big grin. This piece of advice, at last, seemed to fit right. "Third time's the charm. Thanks, Mum."

Ursa smiled again. "My pleasure, Zuko. I'd love to see you happy again."

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Ember Island: a magical place where the pale yellow sands and the sapphire-blue ocean provided a healing balm to soothe all ills, a plaster to cover any wounds, just for now. Zuko spent two days out there, just walking along the beach - sometimes his private stretch, and sometimes the public one - just enjoying the fresh air and watching his subjects, who had no idea who he was, resting and playing, relaxed and at peace.

On the third day, he sat himself down at his desk and began to compose a letter to Mai. He spent all morning at it, littering the floor with paper on which he had written something he did not want to say, until eventually, he came up with the perfect note:

 _Dear Mai, I know that we parted on bad terms and that I behaved like an idiot, but I know what I did wrote and I am so, so sorry for shutting you out. I'm currently holidaying on Ember Island, and so I am writing to invite you to join me so that I can apologise in person. Zuko._

He bound it up with a red ribbon - for Mai loved red - then attached it to the back of an equally red messenger hawk. He spent a less-than-relaxing day awaiting its return, but when it did, he snatched up the letter eagerly. Mai had replied that, while she was still mad at him, she would hear him out, and would be joining him in two days.

 _Then,_ she had written, _we'll talk._

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 **So, that was Round One of Pro-Bending. I feel that the ending was a little rushed, and I'm not sure if it actually follows the prompt enough - i.e. places enough emphasis on the decision-making, rather than the consequences of the decision, but it's the best I can do, and no-one else on my team has submitted anything. So, it's on to Round Two. Ding, ding, ding! 2,437 words.**


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